Carlyle Group buys a multi-billion dollar gold mine...of DATA

[MetaTrope]

In this LBN thread, some concern has been expressed following the Carlyle Group's $10 billion purchase of SunGard Data Systems, particularly with regard to the explosive growth of Carlyle's assets post-9/11, and the fact that SunGard's software runs NASDAQ.

But buried in Sungard's website is a bit of information which makes those aspects pale by comparison. SunGard saw an aspect of its own business explode after 9/11...its "Availability Services", or "Vaulting & Business Continuity Solutions". What this basically refers to, is 10,000-plus clients in the U.S. and Europe who have ALL their network data stored on SunGard's own servers located deep underground. All their files, email, proposals, research, employee records, reports. And ALL of it is now at the fingertips of the Carlyle Group.

I can't find a list of those clients, but it's easy enough to guess that they're not your corner mom-and-pop convenience store. No, more like the federal government:

"The $150 million Disaster Recovery Services Contract gives agencies access to the three main providers of disaster recovery services: Comdisco Continuity Services, IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services and SunGard Recovery Services.

"More than 40 agencies are using the contract, including the Social Security Administration, the Census Bureau, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center, which processes most federal employees’ paychecks."

SPECTRE never had it this good...

[Kenneth ken]

1. not exactly

" What this basically refers to, is 10,000-plus clients in the U.S. and Europe who have ALL their network data stored on SunGard's own servers located deep underground. "

Vaulting is the off-site storage of data. A business backs up their entire system on their own schedule, some parts of it daily, other parts weekly, etc. Typically this data is stored on tape. The tapes are then shipped off-site for storage.

Business Continuity and Recovery is a process where a business sends it data tapes, and emplyoees to a recovery site, and the business's system is essentially rebuilt at a remote location to facillitate continued operating ability.

The recovery site, i.e. Sungard, provides the hardware, the business loads the data onto the hardware - it is not a constant process of keeping data loaded onto a remote site.

Nor are these remote facilities "located deep underground"; they are simply remote from the core business. If your business is in Augusta Maine, you don't necessarily want your recovery site located their, so it may be in Chicago, as an example.

If you want a sense of who the clients are, they are banks, Wall Street firms, financial lenders like Household Finance, insurance companies; pretty much any company with a sizeable electronic data processing facet.

While there is some degree of concern about Carlyle getting into the business of Disaster Recovery Services, it is an oversimplification to say that all this data is now "at their fingertips."

[Up2Late]

2. What ever, It's still F*cked Up

Carlyle Group is a group Evil Assholes:hide: